Liberal Arts, a Lost Cause?

Parents Forum
61

Those are very interesting data(10) points!

What is also striking is that the list of majors at Stanford would be quite different, and especially for males, from a similar list of majors at your typical public university. Inasmuch as I do not have a comparable list, I would venture that many students are opting for the “default” business major … when that option is available and not restricted as it is in schools such as UT at Austin.

As we know, despite the presence of GSB at Stanford, there is no business major at the UG level. One could wonder how a business major that piggy backs on a number of the popular 2014 majors would function. After all, a number of Stanford graduates with degrees in Science Technology & Society, Economics, and Management Sciences & Engineering are finding employment as salespeople or marketing support staff at the exploding tech companies.

Of course, many know that the “label” adorned to a particular degree does not necessarily convey the difference is curriculum. Not at all BA in Econ, for instance, mean the same thing everywhere.

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Haha! I am afraid that you might also find a good number of Chemistry majors making sure the latest Starbucks machine is well calibrated! On the other hand, you might be surprised that very successful employees in the booming tech field happen to have degrees in the “obscure” degrees you listed. After all, companies still value people who are not that bad in reading, writing, and … thinking clearly.

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@MyCCscreenname (fun handle, BTW) wrote:

Not to pile on (no—let’s be honest, this is totally piling on), but your statement doesn’t match the reality. Yes, many of these have lower salaries right out of college than the other majors you listed elsewhere in your post (except social work—where in the world did you get the idea that social work is as lucrative as it should be?), but that clean line between lucrative and non-lucrative blurs if not flips ten years out from graduation.

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Even non-obscure majors, like Psych, are doing pretty well in the tech world.

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“Larry Fink, CEO of the investment firm BlackRock, was a political science major at Duke.”

@bclintonk Larry Fink did not attend Duke. He attended UCLA. Bill Gross attended Duke.

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Let’s not be technical, shall we? He is taking a group of courses designed to make him eligible for medical school because he is interested in eventually becoming a cardiologist.

This is not that hard to figure out. Pre-med is just shorthand.

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Yes, but he still needs to have a major, which can be political science. H/SS major pre-meds are not unicorns.

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I stand corrected. That’s what I get for relying on Business Insider. Larry Fink was a political science major at UCLA. Bill Gross was a psychology major at Duke.

69

Well, there’s this Berkeley blog post I came across today by Catherine Ceniza Choy, professor of ethnic studies: No longer useless: Liberal arts education in a digital age. http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/08/04/no-longer-useless-liberal-arts-education-in-a-digital-age/

I’m a firm believer that an (undergraduate) liberal arts education provides a wonderful foundation for any career. Critical thinking skills are sadly lacking these days and an education that provides depth and breadth across disciplines is an effective antidote. “Learning to learn…”

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I understand that, but I think he has chosen a natural science major.

71

Barack Obama, Poli Sci major…

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@ Data10, re: post #49^^^,

I’m not surprised Stanford is moving so strongly toward STEM and technology in particular. This trend is much less pronounced at the top publics. At the University of Michigan for example:

1998-99 Bachelor’s degrees awarded:

STEM 35% (of which Engineering 17%, Bio 8%, Health professions 4%, Natural resources 2%, Architecture* 2%, Computer science 1%, Math 1%, Physical sciences 1%)

Humanities & Social sciences 41% (of which Social sciences + History 16%, Psych 10%, English 7%, Liberal arts/general studies 3%, Foreign languages & literatures 2%, Area & ethnic studies 2%, Philosophy 1%)

Visual & performing arts 6%

Non-STEM Pre-professional 14% (of which Business 6%, Parks & recreation 4%, Education 2%, Communications 2%)

2013-14 Bachelor’s degrees awarded:

STEM 39% (of which Engineering 16%, Bio 10%, Computer Science 4%, Math 3%, Health professions 3%, Architecture* 1%, Physical sciences 1%, Natural resources 1%)

Humanities & Social sciences 37% (of which Social sciences 14%, History 2%, Psych 10%, Foreign languages, literatures and linguistics 4%, English 3%, Area, ethnic, and gender studies 2%, Philosophy 1%, Liberal arts/general studies 1%)

Visual & performing arts 5%

Non-STEM Pre-professional 14% (of which Business 6%, Parks & recreation 3%, Communications/journalism 3%,
Education 1%, Public administration 1%)

  • I included architecture in STEM because it's in part a quite technical applied technology field, though I realize the aesthetic side of architecture is also important.

So some shift towards STEM, but not dramatic. A few things stand out. English took a big hit (-4), as did Liberal arts/general studies (-2). Most other humanities and social science fields were stable, including social sciences + history (reported as a single category in 1998-99 but separate categories in 2013-14), psychology, area & ethnic studies, and philosophy. Foreign languages & literatures actually grew (+2), but it’s not clear how much of this reflects growing interest in foreign languages and literatures, and how much is the growth of linguistics.

On the STEM side, the growth is concentrated in a few fields: computer science (+3), bio (+2), and math (+2). Engineering, health professions, natural resources, and architecture each declined by 1. In the case of engineering and health professions (primarily the nursing school), this is probably due to the fact that these are separate schools within the university to which students are admitted separately, which allows them to control their enrollment–and they simply have chosen not to grow as fast as the undergraduate student body as a whole. In the case of architecture and natural resources, I assume these are no longer perceived as “hot” fields with good job prospects.

Similarly, in the non-STEM pre-professional fields, business is stable because Ross controls the size of its admitted class; it and engineering have become two of the most selective schools at Michigan. Meanwhile, both parks and recreation (I didn’t even know we offered that) and education are both down 1, but that is matched by growth in communications and public administration, both up 1 (though in fairness, public administration wasn’t listed as a category in 1998-99; those students were probably lumped into social sciences).

So at Michigan,perhaps the question isn’t “is liberal arts a lost cause?” but rather “is the English department a lost cause?” If you look at the liberal arts as classically defined, namely the pure (not applied) sciences and math plus humanities plus social sciences, there’s been essentially no change (51% in 1998-99, 51% in 2013-14), with only a small uptick in biological sciences and math balanced by a decline in English and liberal arts/general studies, while the percentage of students seeking “practical” pre-professional degrees is also stable, albeit with some shifting in reaction to the job market. If you also include the visual and performing arts in the broad category of “liberal arts,” there’s been only a slight change (57% in 1998-99, 56% in 2013-14), but this is both within the margin for rounding and also possibly due to slower-than-university-wide growth in the visual and performing arts schools, which like engineering, business, and nursing have their own separate admissions pools, and in the case of visual and performing arts admit primarily on the basis of talent. Finally, it’s not even clear that the English department is losing enrollment to STEM, since foreign languages, literatures and linguistics as well as communications have also grown, quite possibly by attracting the same kinds of students who a couple of decades ago would have been more inclined to study English.

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John Skipper, President, ESPN, Inc.; Co-Chairman, Disney Media Networks: B.A., English Literature, University of North Carolina; M.A., Columbia University.

http://espnmediazone.com/us/bios/skipper_john/

74

Excellent point. Then there are the 6 presidents who were history majors (Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Kennedy, Nixon, and G.W. Bush). Vice President Biden was also a history major. History majors also dominate on the present Supreme Court (Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Kagan, and Sotomayor) although Justices Ginsburg and Alito were government majors, Thomas was an English major, and Breyer was a philosophy major. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton were political science majors.

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Yes. History can be wonderful preparation for law.

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I was a history major 20 some years ago - and have loved my career. My kid is an arts major and her dad and I are 1000% on board.

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Along with English, philosophy, political science, economics, and business, according to the American Bar Association, though there are no restrictions on which majors can get you into law school.

http://www.lawyeredu.org/best-pre-law-schools.html

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^ likewise med school, though a few specific courses need to be taken and excelled in. Per Hahvahd med school:

https://hms.harvard.edu/departments/admissions/applying/requirements-admission

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I assume this has been posted http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

That ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech’s Hottest Ticket
This story appears in the August 17, 2015 issue of Forbes.

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@jym626 that article (with the proper url) is on page 2. I don’t find it particularly good. First Anders implies a mediocre outlook for software engineering jobs. The BLS job outlook for software developers (22% growth) is double the national average job outlook. Additionally, are people not aware that tech companies have sales departments? Why does this article exist?

quote. My desirous CS majors are interested in the industry itself, but I think have no clue what it takes to do well there. They also have very little focus beyond what they are already doing – how they themselves are already using technology as teenagers. Being comfortable with technology is not an indication that you will be the next famous wealthy entrepreneur.

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I’m not surprised at all. Most undergrad curricula don’t prepare students for enterprise development and IT. Most teenagers also don’t have any experience in programming, so it’s hard to know if CS is the right major going into freshman year. Anyone who mentions wanting to be a CS major is told by adults, peers, and uncritical journalists (coughNYTimescough) that they’ll be courted by numerous companies offering six figure salaries. Back in the late 90s anyone who could write a function could get a job, but that’s not the case anymore.